The Empire's Corps: Book 04 - Semper Fi

by Christopher Nuttall

  Ron led the way into the building, stunner in hand. Standard procedure when entering a hostile building was to stun everyone first and ask questions later, once the victims had been taken out of the building and identified. It was quite possible that some of the people inside were innocent, although that seemed unlikely given who owned the property. He pushed the thought out of his head as he came face-to-face with armed guards. They were already raising their weapons when the guardsmen stunned them.

  “Keep moving,” he ordered, wishing that they knew more about the internal layout of the building. He was sure that the plans were on file somewhere, but they’d been given no time to look them up, let alone take the plans with them. “Take them all down.”

  The small pile of stunned captives grew later as the guardsmen made their way through the building. Most of them were small fry – gangland enforcers or secretaries, doing the menial work of running a criminal empire – but a handful were actually quite important. Ron allowed himself a smirk at some of their expressions before they’d been stunned, as if they hadn't expected the forces of law and order to come arrest them. But then, he hadn’t expected to be tasked with arresting them either.

  Finally, they pulled all of the captives into the lobby, secured them and checked for anyone on the list of principle targets. The office block belonged to Crab, a known crime lord, but there was no sign of him among the arrestees. Ron guessed that someone in the office had hastily called the bastard as soon as the guardsmen had been given their orders, prompting him to escape. And plot trouble, Ron was sure.

  His radio buzzed. “Sergeant,” the dispatcher said, “we have reports of crowds gathering throughout the red light district.”

  Ron grimaced. “Secure the prisoners in the vans,” he ordered, tightly. The red light district had never been gripped by fear, certainly not like the rest of the city. “And hurry!”

  He saw the crowds forming at both ends of the street as the prisoners were hastily bundled into the vans and prepared for transport. Crab must have orchestrated it, he realised, or perhaps one of the other crime lords – or all of them. They were hardly likely to take this official intrusion into their territory lying down. He clambered into the front of the van and barked orders to the drive, telling him to drive right at the crowds. They scattered, as he expected, allowing the vehicles to pass through ...

  ... And then a hail of debris rained down on the van from high overhead, followed by a handful of burning bottles and faeces. Ron gritted his teeth, reminding himself that the vehicles were armoured and it would take more than a bottle full of burning fuel to hurt them, before the front tires seemed to explode. They’d been shot out by a sniper ... he reached for the radio, cursing under his breath, as the crowds started to close in again.

  “Move faster,” he snarled. Whatever concerns he’d had about hurting the crowd had faded away as he realised that they were in very real danger. “Run the bastards down if you have to.”

  The driver gunned the engine ... which suddenly spluttered to a halt. Ron stared in absolute disbelief; how had that happened? And then the locks clicked open and hands started to pull open the doors, yanking them wide open. Ron found himself staring into a sea of angry faces, baying for his blood. He pulled the stunner off his belt and started to point it at the nearest face, but it was yanked out of his hand before he could pull the trigger. A moment later, strong hands grasped his trousers and pulled him right out of the cab.

  “No,” Ron cried out. He’d seen people torn to death by mobs before. It was never pretty. “I ...”

  His head hit the hard pavement and he knew no more.

  ***

  Lukas heard the crowd baying its approval as the guardsmen were torn apart and shivered, inwardly. The crowd seemed a living thing in its own right, hundreds of minds – perhaps thousands – bound together into a single entity that wanted pain and blood and suffering. All of the guardsmen were dead ...

  He found his way to the edge of the crowd and slipped off into the side streets. No one was quite sure why the guardsmen had decided to raid the red light district, but the crime lords had come out in force against them; Lukas had planned to make demonstration raids of his own, as his orders had specified, but in the end they hadn't been necessary. Instead ... he looked back at the burning vans, after the prisoners had been extracted from them, and smiled to himself. Maybe Admiral Singh would respond in force, but for the moment he had the satisfaction of hitting back at his tormentors.

  A dozen helicopters flew overhead as he walked away from the crowd, their pilots staring down at the chaos below. God alone knew what they had in mind, but unless they intended to open fire on the crowd Lukas couldn't see what they could do to stop the riot. The crime lords and their lieutenants were already trying to direct it out of the red light district, funnelling the hatred and pent-up rage towards the people who worked directly for Admiral Singh. It was a challenge to her authority, he’d been told, that she couldn't ignore.

  And it would win the resistance time to think and plan for the next round ...

  ***

  Rani glared down at the displays, each one showing scenes from riots that seemed to be spreading out of the red light district. Evidently the crime lords had seen fit to play both sides by working with the insurgents as well as her loyalists, as if they didn't believe that she controlled enough firepower to destroy a hundred worlds. She'd authorised a set of raids to show them her power – and they were trying to show her theirs in response.

  “Have the reserves moved up and block their passage out of the red light district,” she ordered, crossly. Ground combat wasn't her forte, but luckily this was a fairly simple tactical exercise. “And if the reserves are incapable of holding the crowds, the helicopters are authorised to use knock-out gas.”

  She scowled over at Patterson. “I thought you told me that this could be controlled,” she snapped. “What went wrong?”

  Patterson paled – as well he might. “Someone in the office contacted the crime lords,” he said, finally. “They had enough advance warning to escape.”

  “Find that person,” Rani growled. “And once you find them, make sure they suffer.”

  She thought, rapidly. If she simply destroyed the red light district, it would teach them a lesson – but she needed it as a safety valve, a place for the discontented and dispossessed to fade away into nothingness. It was why she had tolerated it – and its masters – for so long, rather than exterminating them when they had first shown themselves. Besides, the crime lords had profited from her rule. Why would they want to turn against her?

  But if they thought that the insurgents might actually win, they would want to be on the winning side ... and the only way to do that was to assist the insurgents.

  “Then flood the area with additional troops and find the bastards,” she added, angrily. If they had ties to the insurgents, they would be found out – and then they would be used to destroy the insurgency. “I want absolutely no mistakes – or escapes.”

  “Yes, Admiral,” Patterson said. “If I may make a suggestion ...?”

  Rani lifted a single eyebrow, icily.

  “We need to reconsider all of our security arrangements in the city,” Patterson said. “With all due respect to my predecessor, the security procedures should have been re-examined every year or so – and were not. The crime lords have gotten so far by taking advantage of structural weaknesses within our system, weaknesses that should have been closed by a yearly examination. If we’d just picked up everything and looked at it every so often ...”

  He sounded hesitant, but Rani took the point. Perhaps they had become too comfortable while securing the rest of her empire.

  “Start looking at ways to reconfigure after we have dealt with the crime lords,” Rani ordered, simply. “Very well said, Mr. Patterson.”

  He flushed, as if he wasn't used to praise.

  Rani watched him leave her office, then turned back to the attack plans for the Commonwealth. The
scouts had brought in enough data for her to draw up the first set of plans, although she wasn't convinced that the Commonwealth was truly dependent on Avalon. She might have been dependent on Corinthian, but then she’d wanted to keep everything under her control. The Commonwealth didn't seem to have a single dictator in command.

  But that would change, she told herself. And soon.

  ***

  “The CYA code works,” Canada said. “We got right into the network!”

  Jasmine snorted in grim amusement. Horn had definitely bent security regulations until they snapped in two. Using a CYA code alone was bad enough, but setting it so that all evidence that the code was used was automatically erased ... Admiral Singh would definitely have had him killed.

  “Good,” she said. Hopefully, between the crime lords and the planned reorganisation, Admiral Singh would have too much else to worry about to notice the jaws of a trap forming around her. “Now, all we have to do is wait. And see.”

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  This may seem contradictory. The Empire never seemed to enjoy the consent of the governed, did it? But the truth was that the vast majority of citizens found life in the Empire to be tolerable, even if it was far from perfect. Those who rebelled were always in the minority until the Empire reached the last few decades of its life. Even an entire sector falling into revolt could not destroy the entire edifice.

  -Professor Leo Caesius, Authority, Power and the Post-Imperial Era

  “I missed you,” Danielle confessed.

  “I hope so,” Trevor said, as he snuggled up to his wife. He still hadn't quite forgiven her for convincing him that she and their daughters were dead. “I missed you all the time on the platforms.”

  “I know,” Danielle admitted. She shook her head tiredly. “And I don’t blame you for being mad at me.”

  “You should have told me,” Trevor said, as he stood up. “Those moments when I thought they were dead were the worst of my life.”

  He walked into the shower and washed the weak spray of water over his body, then dried himself quickly with a half-damp towel. The flophouse’s owners hadn't bothered to install anything more than the basics, believing that the visitors wanted anonymity more than luxury or anything else. They were probably right, Trevor had concluded after his first night. God knew that he’d just wanted to crawl into a bottle and forget everything else.

  Danielle was weeping silently when he emerged from the shower, worn down by her role in the Democratic Underground and the lie she’d allowed her husband to believe. Trevor felt a brief pang of guilt, then tried to push it aside. It refused to fade; Danielle had concealed her past to protect him and their children, and then she’d helped fake her death to provide additional protection. She might have mishandled events, but she hadn't meant ill.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, as he wrapped his arms around her. “I know you meant well.”

  His wife sobbed into his shoulder for a long moment, then let go of him. “You’d better get dressed,” she said, shortly. “You have a briefing to attend. One I’m not allowed to attend.”

  Trevor almost pointed out that she’d kept a secret from him for over two years, but stopped himself just in time. Instead, he pulled on the uniform he’d been given along with his promotion and headed towards the door. Danielle blew him a weepy kiss and then stepped into the shower, leaving him alone. Trevor hesitated, then walked out of the door and down towards the second apartment. There was no time for his wife any longer.

  Something big was happening, he was sure. Ever since he’d been brought into the conspiracy, ever since he had started work on building his own cell, it had been with the vague promise that something would happen in the future. He’d been told that, whatever else happened, he was to keep his head down and not make waves, apart from recruiting new cell members. Now, however, something was different. The fighting in the countryside, the riots in the red light district ... and the summons to the flophouse. Something was definitely happening.

  He knocked on the door and stepped inside, suddenly very aware of unseen eyes. The woman he’d met before was seated at a table, facing him, her dark eyes fixed on his face. There was something about her that worried him, a kind of edged hardness that was so very different from his wife’s personality. What was she? And she’d changed somehow, since their last meeting ...

  “Be seated,” the woman ordered. “I trust that your last report was accurate?”

  Trevor flushed. “They don’t train us to make mistakes in the field,” he said, sharply. “The report was as accurate as it could be without sacrificing security.”

  The woman’s eyes glinted with humour. “That rhymes,” she pointed out. She looked down at the datapad on the desk, then back up at him. “This room is completely secure. You should have asked first, by the way.”

  She held up a hand before Trevor could muster a retort. “In two weeks, perhaps sooner, you will be called upon to take command of your new duty station,” she said. “You will ...”

  Trevor blinked. “My new duty station?”

  “Indeed,” the woman informed him. “You and several of your cellmates will be transferred to Defence Station II. Admiral Singh has been building up the planet’s fixed defences to ensure that she can hold the world if her planned war goes wrong. Your task will be to secure control of the station. Ideally, you will take it while the station is still operational; failing that, you will knock out the systems and weapons so it will take several days to repair the damage.”

  “Oh,” Trevor said. He hastily remembered what he’d learned about defence stations. Most of the Empire’s technology was standardised, to make it easier to build and maintain, but he’d never served on a defence station. “I don’t know how ...”

  “You will receive instructions on precisely how to take control of the station or sabotage it,” the woman said, briskly. There was no doubt at all in her tone. “You and your men will have the highest level of security clearance available – barely underneath Admiral Singh’s picked cadre of officers. Taking the vital locations on the station from the inside should be simple enough – and should you succeed, you will have automatic control of the weapons platforms surrounding the station.”

  Trevor shivered with a mixture of anticipation and fear. Anticipation because all of the planning and recruitment was finally going to find a focus; fear, because the whole operation could easily go wrong. He wasn't a violent man and knew too many who were. If Admiral Singh’s security forces caught up with him, they wouldn’t have to work hard to get him to talk.

  “I understand,” he said, swallowing hard. “And what if I get caught.”

  “Danielle will be out of the city by the time the shit hits the fan,” the woman informed him. “We will do what we can to get you out of their cells, should they find you, but it may take some time.”

  Trevor nodded. After the upset the security forces had suffered – the complete blackout on information had only encouraged rumours, each one crazier than the last, to spread through the system – they’d be desperate for a victory. If they caught up with him ... they’d use him to break open his cell. It was funny, he realised, how such a victory really wouldn't lead them very far. He knew no one outside his cell apart from Danielle and the woman facing him.

  “I understand,” he said, flatly. “I won't let you down.”

  “Good,” the woman said. She pulled a datachip out of her pocket and passed it to him. “You’ll find most of the information you need on this chip, buried in the memory layers. The password is your wife’s maiden name, but we suggest you change it as soon as possible. In theory, the chip should pass scrutiny as yet another instruction manual ...”

  Trevor nodded, feeling cold ice congealing around his heart as he took the chip. Hiding data in a chip’s memory layers was hard to detect without specialised equipment or knowledge – but he had a feeling that the security officers would test out any chip that fell into their hands, no matter how legitimate it seemed. And then
he would be dead.

  “Meet your team tomorrow, before you get shuttled back to orbit, and go over the plan then,” the woman added. “Remember, the interior of the orbital stations are heavily monitored. One careless word and you’ll be in deep shit. Do not forget that.”

  “I won’t,” Trevor promised. He hesitated, then asked a different question. “What will happen after ... you know.”

  “I hope that everything will return to normal,” the woman said. “But whatever else happens, you and your family will be safe.”

  She smiled, although it didn't quite touch her eyes. “Go say goodbye to your wife,” she ordered. “You won’t see her again until after the coup.”

  ***

  Jasmine watched Trevor Chambers go, feeling an odd pang of envy at how he obviously cared for his wife. He was mad at Danielle – it didn't take much perception to realise that – and yet he still loved her. Danielle was a lucky woman, luckier than she deserved; Jasmine wasn't sure what she would have done to anyone who convinced her that her children were dead, but it wouldn't have been pretty.

  She looked down at the datapad on the table, then stood up, stuffing it into one of her pockets. Trevor Chambers held the most important task in the planned operation, more important than even the one Jasmine had assigned to herself and the rest of the team. It galled her to rely so much on a civilian – she would have been happier dealing with a Civil Guardsman – but there was no choice. It would be tricky to have the Marines moved up into orbit, even if she hadn't had other tasks for them on the ground. They still had to trap Admiral Singh, after all.

  And complete the rest of the illusion, Jasmine thought, sourly. She’d been taught to avoid elaborate plans when she’d been studying at the Slaughterhouse; the more that could go wrong, the more that was likely to go wrong. But Admiral Singh was just too powerful to take on in a straight fight, even if the planet itself wasn't at risk. She needed to knock the Admiral off balance and then checkmate her before she recovered.